Today was Logan’s first school fieldtrip and the destination was the Uesugi Farm Pumpkin Park.  I was one of the five parents who won the lottery to be a chaperone, and so I switched my day off work to be there.  This morning, we had to start our day early as we needed to arrive by 8am.  I was assigned to have 3 kids (one being Logan) initially, but one of the boys was not there, so I was given only Zachary as the additional child to watch.  He is a sweet little boy who loves to hold hands with me so that made things easier.  The plan for today was to board the bus and leave promptly at 8:15am, but unfortunately, the bus was late.  While waiting, the kids listened to the teacher’s instruction for the day and to a story, then played outside in the playground for a little while.  We then returned to the room to hang out, most of us by then were just doing some readings in small groups.  Logan and I were reading nicely together initially, then a few kids came joined us.  Logan brought me another book to read as I was reading one to the kids, so I told him that I would read his book when I finished with the current book.  Just by that, Logan got upset and ran away from us.  He kept running back to tell me “I am not reading!” with his grumpy look and voice.  I tried to calm him, but I had to keep up with the reading to my audience, so I just had to let him be.  Logan finally got distracted by the arrival of the bus.  Everyone was then happily holding hands and waiting in line to board the bus.  At that point, we were over an hour later than scheduled.

      Both Logan and Zachary, as well as the rest of the kids, were very excited to be riding the bus.  The kids were called alphabetically by name to go up one at a time; Logan responded to his call quickly and was fine that I had to stay behind to wait with my other boy.  We then found each other on the bus and sat together.  After 30+ minutes of bus ride, we finally arrived at the pumpkin farm.  We had to wait quite awhile in line before being taken into the farm; once inside, the first activity was the Hayride.  It was an open-top truck ride hauled by a tractor; they took us around the cornfields and the farm.  It was a fun ride and the kids were all fascinated by it.  We then were taken over to ride Logan’s highly anticipated choo choo train.  Logan had been asking for snacks periodically since we left school; by then, he asked to have “dinner” (he must have been hungry, and actually I was too).  Fortunately, we were told that lunch was scheduled after the train ride.  Logan was happy with that news, and we enjoyed the train ride as usual. 

     Everyone was hungry, and sat nicely at the picnic tables eating our own individual sack lunch.  After that, it was potty time for everyone before we moved on to other activities.  This was the first time that I helped a boy go potty other than my own.  It was a bit hectic trying to help two boys using the Port-a-Potty and washing hands while making sure I did not lose any kids.  We then were taken into a tent to watch a video of how pumpkins were grown.  Next we took a short walk through a maze to look at some displays.  Logan wanted to walk fast and my other boy liked to take his time with each display, so it was a bit tiring keep track of them.  Fortunately, they both were relatively obedient.  To wrap up the fieldtrip, we spent a little bit of time at the pumpkin patch, picking out a pumpkin for each kid.  By then, we, the chaperones, were all tired and ready to take our kids back to school.  During the bus ride back, Logan fell asleep on my lap while Zachary was still energized and played with the kids in the seat behind us.  We finally got to school at 2pm.  Fortunately, Logan got a short nap since the class was going to move on to their afternoon activities as the naptime was over.  I said my goodbye to Logan which concluded our first fieldtrip together.